November 2012 Grocery Challenge

rupe34

have lost the post grocery challenge-wise. Sorry all - a few birthdays and it has all gone down the pan I am now on damage limitation...

armchairexpert

People! Disaster! On Thursday, which is my husband's day at home looking after the kids, he decided to be helpful and do the grocery shopping. Picture me reading the text and then running in slow motion towards the store: "Noooooooo!".

$200, excluding butcher and groceries. $200! "Oh, but I only got things on special" he says. Sure, if you count tonic water, commercial baby food (Why? WHY?), muesli bars and fancy yoghurts as a bargain.

And then the summer fruit has JUST hit the shops, and we're all heartily sick of pears and apples and I want the baby to experience her first yummy fruit, so I caved and bought mangoes and blueberries, so that was an expensive shop.

There is no way I am coming in under budget. Even if I could make this shop stretch two weeks with just a top-up milk-and-fruit run, which I could usually, my in-laws are arriving for a visit next week and I don't think I can feed them on left-over corned beef hash patties and chicken noodle soup. And it's the girls' birthday at the end of the month, so that's party food for 30.

Oh well. I tried!

GreenFairy

Good stuff MeanMarie - I'll just squirrel it away at the back then

Armchairexpert - I know how you feel. Hubs means to make my life easier but if I even go to the shops for milk with him, I end up coming home with bags of treaty things. He is bad for my willpower! Since I've started doing the grocery shopping on my own I've brought the budget right down and have been sticking to it pretty well.

RevolvingDoor

I'm veg so I'm having veg sausage and tomato toastie and a cup of tea for breakfast today.

I have some veg mince in freezer so I'm making a Shepherd's Pie with mince, peas, carrots, onions and onion gravy in base and mashing a couple of spuds and some cauliflower with some marge and milk to make the topping.

The pie will be for dinner and maybe some homemade soup for lunch as it looks quite cold out there.:eek:

Hope everyone is okay on such a chilly morning.:A

Tiglath

I'm done for November apart from some extra milk before Friday when my December starts. Bust the budget this month (£373.23 when I was aiming for £350) as Mum demands certain branded stuff, and I went crazy on Mr T yellow stickers. The freezers are reasonably full still so I'm setting the same budget again, even allowing for Christmas. The luxury % went down from 32% to 14%, and the cat budget went from 26% to 34% as they're demanding more now it's cold. I'm reasonably happy though; we certainly haven't felt deprived in November, everything's been homecooked apart from reduced frozen lasagnas, and we didn't have our usual payday take-away.

afeitar

Had a small spend on Saturday - well, I say small but it was quite big actually cos I bought some bottles of crabbies non-alcoholic ginger beer and some jeremiah weed! Always forget how much alcohol can boost up a food bill. Also got some beef skirt and lambs neck to do some slow cooked stews this week so I'm hoping it lasts until the weekend. £28.99 added to the food bill making it £75.89. Quite pleased that that is half of the budget.

Coxy11

Hi everyone,

Sorry I didn't get a chance to post yesterday as I was working

Welcome to the newbies - CookieMonsta and Revolving Door

Thank you everyone who has mentioned my DNephew, and for all your (((hugs))) and advice. He is arriving tomorrow night and will come with me to work (gardening) on Wednesday, plus help out at the youth club I run in the evening. Thursday I thought we could have a productive day looking at courses/apprenticeships that might be of interest. Friday I'm going to London for a meeting, so will take him with me. Might get him climbing the monument in Pudding Lane to expend some energy :rotfl:DSis is worried about the amount of time he spends alone in his room and as she has suffered with depression for a long time is worried he is going the same way. Anyway, some time away from home might help put some changes in place.

Sorry, now back to the subject of this thread :o

I didn't fancy breakfast this morning, so have just had lo roast pork and cauliflower from Saturday's roast (having to have a roast on Saturday now that I work on Sunday). It was delicious and very :money:

I'm off to Tosco now so will update my totals when I'm back.
Coxy

poppy-glos

i did my meal plan and shopping list, four items on shopping list, shopped and bought only the four items..... whoop whoop.... this is a first for me!

RevolvingDoor

I nearly forgot I was supposed to be doing a grocery challenge and turned to my DH and asked if he wanted to go to the local chip shop for lunch.:p

Instead of the soup I had planned to have we had oven chips from the freezer and we shared a tin of spaghetti from the store cupboard along with a slice of bread.:money:

Coxy11 wrote: »

Welcome to the newbies - CookieMonsta and Revolving Door

Hiya.:wave:

Coxy11

Hi everyone,

Back from Tosco. Total of £47.38 spent which included £2 on a special birthday card for my friend who has a BIG birthday this week so £45.38 from the grocery budget. Will update sig.

Mealplan for this week:

Monday - spag bol
Tuesday - macaroni cheese, mange tout, green beans
Wednesday - salmon, mash, broccoli
Thursday - sausages, mini roasties, veg (tbc)
Friday - DS2 has a friend for tea and DD's guides are putting on a show that night, so may take the family to McD's - save myself some hassle!

Have a good day everyone.
Coxy

ETA. Re: budgets - December's GC is now up but I'm posting here until 30th November. Will be reading both threads as usual to catch all budget info